The Ego and his Own by Max Stirner (most read books txt) 📕

Dropping out of personal concern, one gets into

philanthropy, friendliness to man, which is usually misunderstood as if it

was a love to men, to each individual, while it is nothing but a love of

Man, the unreal concept, the spook. It is not tous anthropous, men, but

ton anthropon, Man, that the philanthropist carries in his heart. To be

sure, he cares for each individual, but only because he wants to see his

beloved ideal realized everywhere.

So there is nothing said here of care for me, you, us; that would be personal

interest, and belongs under the head of "worldly love." Philanthropy is a

heavenly, spiritual, a -- priestly love. Man must be restored in us, even if

thereby we poor devils should come to grief. It is the same priestly principle

as that famous fiat justitia, pereat mundus; man and justice are ideas,

ghosts, for love of which everything is sacrificed; therefore, the priestly

spirits are the "self-sacrificing" ones.

He who is infatuated with Man leaves persons out of account so far as that

infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see,

is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.

Now, things as different as possible can belong to Man and be so regarded.

If one finds Man's chief requirement in piety, there arises religious

clericalism; if one sees it in morality, then moral clericalism raises its

head. On this account the priestly spirits of our day want to make a

"religion" of everything, a "religion of liberty," "religion of equality,"

etc., and for them every idea becomes a "sacred cause," e. g. even

citizenship, politics, publicity, freedom of the press, trial by jury, etc.

Now, what does "unselfishness" mean in this sense? Having only an ideal

interest, before which no respect of persons avails!

The stiff head of the worldly man opposes this, but for centuries has always

been worsted at least so far as to have to bend the unruly neck and "honor the

higher power"; clericalism pressed it down. When the worldly egoist had shaken

off a higher power (e. g. the Old Testament law, the Roman pope, etc.), then

at once a seven times higher one was over him again, e. g. faith in the

place of the law, the transformation of all laymen into divines in place of

the limited body of clergy, etc. His experience was like that of the possessed

man into whom seven devils passed when he thought he had freed himself from

one.

In the passage quoted above, all ideality is denied to the middle class. It

certainly schemed against the ideal consistency with which Robespierre wanted

to carry out the principle. The instinct of its interest told it that this

consistency harmonized too little with what its mind was set on, and that it

would be acting against itself if it were willing to further the enthusiasm

for principle. Was it to behave so unselfishly as to abandon all its aims in

order to bring a harsh theory to its triumph? It suits the priests admirably,

to be sure, when people listen to their summons, "Cast away everything and

follow me," or "Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt

have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Some decided idealists obey

this call; but most act like Ananias and Sapphira, maintaining a behavior half

clerical or religious and half worldly, serving God and Mammon.

I do not blame the middle class for not wanting to let its aims be frustrated

by Robespierre, i.e. for inquiring of its egoism how far it might give the

revolutionary idea a chance. But one might blame (if blame were in place here

anyhow) those who let their own interests be frustrated by the interests of

the middle class. However, will not they likewise sooner or later learn to

understand what is to their advantage? August Becker says:(43) "To win the

producers (proletarians) a negation of the traditional conception of right is

by no means enough. Folks unfortunately care little for the theoretical

victory of the idea. One must demonstrate to them ad oculos how this victory

can be practically utilized in life." And (p.32): "You must get hold of folks

by their real interests if you want to work upon them." Immediately after this

he shows how a fine looseness of morals is already spreading among our

peasants, because they prefer to follow their real interests rather than the

commands of morality.

Because the revolutionary priests or schoolmasters served Man, they cut off

the heads of men. The revolutionary laymen, those outside the sacred circle,

did not feel any greater horror of cutting off heads, but were less anxious

about the rights of Man than about their own.

How comes it, though, that the egoism of those who affirm personal interest,

and always inquire of it, is nevertheless forever succumbing to a priestly or

schoolmasterly (i. e. an ideal) interest? Their person seems to them too

small, too insignificant -- and is so in fact -- to lay claim to everything

and be able to put itself completely in force. There is a sure sign of this in

their dividing themselves into two persons, an eternal and a temporal, and

always caring either only for the one or only for the other, on Sunday for the

eternal, on the work-day for the temporal, in prayer for the former, in work

for the latter. They have the priest in themselves, therefore they do not get

rid of him, but hear themselves lectured inwardly every Sunday.

How men have struggled and calculated to get at a solution regarding these

dualistic essences! Idea followed upon idea, principle upon principle, system

upon system, and none knew how to keep down permanently the contradiction of

the "worldly" man, the so-called "egoist." Does not this prove that all those

ideas were too feeble to take up my whole will into themselves and satisfy it?

They were and remained hostile to me, even if the hostility lay concealed for

a considerable time. Will it be the same with self-ownership? Is it too only

an attempt at mediation? Whatever principle I turned to, it might be to that

of reason, I always had to turn away from it again. Or can I always be

rational, arrange my life according to reason in everything? I can, no doubt,

strive after rationality, I can love it, just as I can also love God and

every other idea. I can be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, as I love God.

But what I love, what I strive for, is only in my idea, my conception, my

thoughts; it is in my heart, my head, it is in me like the heart, but it is

not I, I am not it.

To the activity of priestly minds belongs especially what one often hears

called "moral influence."

Moral influence takes its start where humiliation begins; yes, it is nothing

else than this humiliation itself, the breaking and bending of the temper(44)

down to humility.(45) If I call to some one to run away when a rock is to be

blasted, I exert no moral influence by this demand; if I say to a child "You

will go hungry if you will not eat what is put on the table," this is not

moral influence. But, if I say to it, "You will pray, honor your parents,

respect the crucifix, speak the truth, for this belongs to man and is man's

calling," or even "this is God's will," then moral influence is complete; then

a man is to bend before the calling of man, be tractable, become humble,

give up his will for an alien one which is set up as rule and law; he is to

abase himself before something higher: self-abasement. "He that abaseth

himself shall be exalted." Yes, yes, children must early be made to practice

piety, godliness, and propriety; a person of good breeding is one into whom

"good maxims" have been instilled and impressed, poured in through a

funnel, thrashed in and preached in.

If one shrugs his shoulders at this, at once the good wring their hands

despairingly, and cry: "But, for heaven's sake, if one is to give children no

good instruction, why, then they will run straight into the jaws of sin, and

become good-for-nothing hoodlums!" Gently, you prophets of evil.

Good-for-nothing in your sense they certainly will become; but your sense

happens to be a very good-for-nothing sense. The impudent lads will no longer

let anything be whined and chattered into them by you, and will have no

sympathy for all the follies for which you have been raving and driveling

since the memory of man began; they will abolish the law of inheritance; they

will not be willing to inherit your stupidities as you inherited them from

your fathers; they destroy inherited sin.(46) If you command them, "Bend

before the Most High," they will answer: "If he wants to bend us, let him come

himself and do it; we, at least, will not bend of our own accord." And, if you

threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, they will take it like being

threatened with the bogie-man. If you are no more successful in making them

afraid of ghosts, then the dominion of ghosts is at an end, and nurses' tales

find no -- faith.

And is it not precisely the liberals again that press for good education and

improvement of the educational system? For how could their liberalism, their

"liberty within the bounds of law," come about without discipline? Even if

they do not exactly educate to the fear of God, yet they demand the *fear of

Man* all the more strictly, and awaken "enthusiasm for the truly human

calling" by discipline.

A long time passed away, in which people were satisfied with the fancy that

they had the truth, without thinking seriously whether perhaps they

themselves must be true to possess the truth. This time was the Middle Ages.

With the common consciousness -- i.e. the consciousness which deals with

things, that consciousness which has receptivity only for things, or for what

is sensuous and sense-moving -- they thought to grasp what did not deal with

things and was not perceptible by the senses. As one does indeed also exert

his eye to see the remote, or laboriously exercise his hand till its fingers

have become dexterous enough to press the keys correctly, so they chastened

themselves in the most manifold ways, in order to become capable of receiving

the supersensual wholly into themselves. But what they chastened was, after

all, only the sensual man, the common consciousness, so-called finite or

objective thought. Yet as this thought, this understanding, which Luther

decries under the name of reason, is incapable of comprehending the divine,

its chastening contributed just as much to the understanding of the truth as

if one exercised the feet year in